In the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was in the White House, the Heritage Foundation was the most influential rightwing thinktank in Washington.

Nowadays, that distinction belongs to the American Enterprise Institute. A glance at the AEI's list of scholars and fellows provides swift confirmation of the cosy ties between the thinktank and the White House. Lynne Cheney, wife of the vice-president, is a senior fellow; David Frum, a former speechwriter for the president, is a resident fellow; and Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser before the war, also has a desk there.

The AEI today made the front pages of the Guardian, which reported that the ExxonMobil-funded thinktank had been offering scientists and economists $10,000 each to undermine a report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The AEI sings from the same hymn sheet as the White House, not just on climate change but on Iraq.

The president, desperate not to go down in history as the man who lost in Iraq, chose to listen to the hawkish AEI rather than the Baker-Hamilton group when it was time for a "new way forward".

The main thrust of the Iraq Study Group was diplomacy - talk to Iran and Syria - although they were not against a temporary troop increase for Baghdad. The AEI, on the other hand, put the emphasis very much on the military option.

Frederick Kagan, a military historian at the AEI and a signatory to the Project for a New American Century, has emerged as one of Washington's most influential armchair generals. Mr Kagan and Jack Keane, a retired army general, have pushed hard for the troop "surge", although they do harbour reservations about the Bush plan.

Mr Kagan and General Keane wanted at least 30,000 troops, rather than the 21,500 that will be going. They are also very leery about the dual chain of command of US and Iraqi troops proposed by Mr Bush. While the duo can quibble about how the White House has not followed their plan to the letter, they and the AEI have clearly emerged as the winners of the president's ear.